Retailers often attempt to increase their overall revenues by encouraging customers to spend more money per visit to a retail establishment. One method retailers have utilized to encourage customers to spend more money during a visit to a retail establishment is to offer a discount for the purchase of multiple units of a single product. Such a discount scheme is typically enticing to customers when offered in connection with non-perishable goods that require replacement over time (e.g. canned goods). However, customers tend not to be persuaded to purchase multiple units of consumer products such as clothing or electronics. Other methods for encouraging customers to spend more money during a visit to a retail establishment have been attempted with varying degrees of success.
In general, customers are more likely to increase expenditures at a retail establishment if they perceive that they are receiving personal attention and/or a discount not available to other customers. As an example, small privately-owned shops (“boutiques”) are often successful in encouraging customers to spend more money per visit by providing personal sales assistants to assist their customers. Personal sales assistants are especially effective if they have the authority to offer personalized package pricing discounts to the customers. For example, a sales assistant in an exclusive men's store, when helping a customer who is considering the purchase of a suit, may suggest a shirt and tie to go with the suit. The salesman may offer to sell the shirt and tie for only $50 above the price of the suit (wherein the retail prices of the shirt and tie are $45 and $25, respectively) if the customer agrees to purchase the suit. In this example, the customer is more likely to buy the suit as well as the shirt and the tie. The retailer benefits by completing a transaction and by increasing the purchase total of that transaction. The retailer may be particularly willing to offer a substantial discount on the shirt and tie if a large profit margin is to be realized on the suit.
Larger retailers and retail chains, however, have been unable to take advantage of such a personalized package pricing method. Personalized package pricing in a sizable retail environment would inappropriately place negotiating and price structure power in the hands of a large number of store sales personnel. In order to effectively utilize the above-described personalized price packaging method, store sales personnel would require intimate knowledge of the cost of each item and would require the ability to quickly and correctly determine an attractive, yet still profitable, price package to offer a customer. Placing such negotiating and price structure power in the hands of too many store sales personnel is particularly undesirable due to the potential for fraud and potential loss of profits. Specifically, sales personnel may be apt to sell products at substantial discounts to their friends and family.
On-line retailers suffer from the same inability to offer personalized package pricing discounts and are thus unable to encourage customers to purchase items which are of interest to the customers, while simultaneously increasing the customers' purchase totals. In fact, on-line retailers suffer from an acute lack of ability to offer personalized sales assistance to their customers in general.
Accordingly, there remains a need for a system and method to enable retailers, particularly on-line retailers, to provide personalized sales assistance for encouraging customers to complete purchases that they are considering and to increase their purchase total.